Apple’s first-ever retail store in India to open gates for public this month

Apple’s Mumbai retail store is expected to open its gates to the public this month. The Mumbai store launch will be followed by a retail store in Delhi-NCR.

The move comes at a time when the smartphone major is ramping up plans to boost local manufacturing in a fillip to the Central government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.

“While Apple has taken time to for its retail store foray in India, it makes sense now more than ever. The premium Indian consumer is maturing and spending more, especially at the premium end which makes India the next big growth market in the next decade for Apple – across product and service categories,” said Navkendar Singh, Associate Vice President with IDC India.

Apple has done very well across categories in the past couple of years, especially in iPhone sales with around 6.7 million units in 2022 compared to 4.8 million in 2021 and 2.7 million in 2020, as per IDC data.

India has been one of the consistent growth markets for Apple. The country features largely in Apple’s plans to diversify its manufacturing reliance away from China.

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The Cupertino-based company assembles iPhones, including the latest iPhone 14, through three Taiwanese contract manufacturers – Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron – in southern India. All three are approved under the government’s production-linked incentive scheme for smartphones.“Premium end of the market is seeing healthy growth. Apple’s differentiated experience via its own stores will attract this premium consumer. This can only help boost the sales and business for Apple in India,” Singh added.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said recently that looking at the business in India, “we set a quarterly revenue record and grew very strong double digits year over year and so we feel very good about how we performed”.

“That’s despite the headwinds that we talked about. India is a hugely exciting market for us and a major focus. We brought the online store there in 2020. We will soon bring Apple Retail there,” Cook said in February.

Prabhu Ram, Head- the Industry Intelligence Group at CMR said that the Apple-owned flagship stores are a key pillar in Apple India’s playbook to win in a strategic growth market.

“A stream of favorable tailwinds back the launch of the Apple-owned flagship retail stores in India. The premium smartphone segment in India continues to be immune to macroeconomic pressures and has been growing in double digits. Offline retail continues to be key in a large, diverse market like India, where consumers love to touch, feel and explore the products,” Ram said.

He added that Apple would seek to replicate the famed Apple retail experience – including, overall consumer experience, staff knowledge and expertise, and service standards, amongst others – in India, and steer greater market growth in the years ahead.